Recent views on PR as related to WiredPages

I have posted to Q's Wire... thoughts I have on the recent changes to pagerank for WiredPages. My comments are here.

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A powerful easy to use ecommerce solution-- Ashop Commerce

To be perfectly honest the ecommerce/shopping cart solution-- aShop Commerce, I am writing about this evening has been sitting in my inbox for several days. When I initially investigated this offering, I checked only two pages; [1] the home page and [2] the pricing page. My mistake. I liked the home page-- very professionally done, however after briefly checking the pricing page I was a little dismayed to learn this shopping cart solution included "everything".



What do I mean by everything? An end to end ecommerce solution that includes hosting and your choice of four plans that vary by maximum number of products, web space and bandwidth requirements.

For some reason, I did not think this type of offering was something most ecommerce site owners would want. This evening, I test drove one of two demonstration stores available for review, and changed my mind.

I am pretty impressed with this shopping cart solution. The application demonstrations [both as a store admin and as a shopper] are an absolute must if you are seriously looking for an end to end shopping cart solution for your ebusiness.

The software-- is pretty sophisticated, thorough and feature rich. The designers and developers have really thought of everything and the end users [site owners, store maintenance personnel, etc.] are going to find this shopping cart very easy to use.

Features include:

• Integrated with all major banks and payment gateways
  
• 50+ Professional Themes-- which are easily modified
  
• Customizable template system
  
• No knowledge of HTML required
  
• Unlimited main / sub categories
  

For a complete list of features-- see here.

I am a software developer-- this shopping cart solution offers someone like me, very little to do. If you are not a software developer-- I think you will be happy with this powerful ecommerce solution.

Technorati Tags: shopping cart, Sponsor Posts, QiSoftware, Q's Wire...

Google PageRank: going, going-- gosh...

This blog has dropped from a PR4 to PR2 in just under a week. What's notable about this? First it went from PR4 to PR3 and then PR3 to PR2, all within the week. They [Google] called me once about a job-- probably because of the Blogger Calendar-- so I know they know of me. Maybe I need to offer to fix that "PR" algorithm. Just kidding.

It was at PR5 a year or two ago-- the highest page on the site [qisoftware.com].

I wonder if they like the new Quick Map interface I recently installed on the WiredPages Dining & Travel page.

In the same time period, I also toyed with an Alexa Redirect to see if I could ensure Alexa counted all hits. I took it off almost as soon as I installed it, because I heard Google frowned on the practice-- and in doing so-- could cause a downward shift in PR. This blog was not affected by the use of the redirect and the redirect was employed for too short a period to cause this much damage.

I can never tell what motivates those with an algorithm. I have toyed with a few myself. I know how they work... They can affect income which can have disastrous ramifications for all concerned.

Technorati Tags: Google PR, QiSoftware, Q's Wire...

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Smorty Review [Blogging for Pay]

So are you interested in making money with your blog? As earlier reported, I am reviewing several services that pay bloggers to do just that-- "blog".

You might ask-- "Why would anyone pay me to blog?". Any number of reasons including your reviews and opinions on products and services are wanted, as well as the advertising benefits the posts generate for the products and services you are blogging about.

My latest review is for Smorty, one of the "quieter" kids on the block, in as far as blog advertising services go, but nevertheless popular.

The first thing you'll notice about-- Smorty? The site has a super easy look, which in this case also translates into super easy to use. This is a good thing. I became a blogger because my first blogging service-- had a super easy "look". Here is Smorty's--


I have joined several services that pay bloggers, however this was the first that I noticed, after a quick glance at their rules, that had a special rule about grammar. That is not to say you cannot get your blog approved with a minor error here or there, after all grammar is not always my strong suit-- however, Smorty maybe a little stricter in this area than some of the others.

Some of the other features that distinguish Smorty from similar services:

• Unique blogger rating system.
  
• Approves blog posts in a shorter "window" of time.
  
• Pays more frequently.
  

Blogging for pay-- especially if you are not a professional writer but love blogging, researching, and testing new products and services-- it's a really neat thing.

Technorati Tags: Smorty, Sponsor Posts, Paid Blogging Services, QiSoftware, Q's Wire...

Sports Problems

Using the Google Reader because I am researching ways to put NFL scores and headlines on the WiredPages Sports page. Currently the AP Headlines magnet for that page is broken. Hoping AP will remove the illegal character added to this feed which is causing an error in the servlet. If not, in a day or so I will go in and update my code.

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Technical Hardcopy

I have had a subscription to first PCWeek and then its successor eWeek since before leaving Rockwell. I also had subscriptions to PC Magazine, PC World and Byte.

These days, I seldom have the opportunity to read magazines unless I have a doctor's appointment or waiting on my latest car repair. We are quickly approaching a paperless society. I still look forward to receiving my hardcopy of eWeek even though I can read everything online-- probably faster.

Is there an offline magazine that you will miss receiving in the mail?

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Do you Facebook?

Do you Facebook? How are you using the service to further your business?

I have been using this service quite a bit recently. Mainly to join groups and post to discussion boards. I have not noticed any new business leads, however it is still early.

My service offerings [web hosting and development] should essentially allow me to go anywhere to find new business leads. Social and business groups, both on and offline. I think business forums are the toughest in as far as making new inroads because everyone is after the same thing-- new business.

I have looked into independently developing tools for Facebook. Looks like their developers have made this a very easy thing for outsiders to accomplish. Some of the benefits of taking a full time position with Facebook, include a new Mac Notebook. I briefly considered submitting my application. The move to San Francisco not the problem. I think corporate structure cannot fully utilize the many areas I wish to delve and I would probably have a hard time giving up this freedom.

I think I am going to keep my Facebook activities more social in nature. Look me up [Regina Thomas-- QiSoftware], I am always looking for new online friends.

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Quick Maps Interface [Google Maps] --

I finally put up a working version of my Google maps interface. You can find a demo on Q's Wire here or on the WiredPages Dining & Travel page. I am still tweaking this new tool.

Read more about the tool here.

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Asking Experts -- ProfessionalProfiles

Finding an audience for the new ProfessionalsProfiles service, however very few signing up to list their profiles. Marketing person [me] is over there screaming-- "be quiet Regina". I think it important to note, the number of visitors taking a look. I recently submitted a question to the experts at Inc.com-- about how to find sponsors for this type of service. I am not looking for investors, only sponsors.

Technorati Tags: Professional Profiles, QiSoftware, Q's Wire...

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Web Hosting Price Increases - Pending

Thinking about changing the pricing plans on Hosting-Q for hosting. Unfortunately, everything goes up these days. The bright side? Our incentives are great.

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